


What Lies Beyond Morning

by SouthernBird



Series: Shance Fluff Week 2017 [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: All Mentioned in Passing - Freeform, Black Lion! Shiro, Day Two: Sea/Stars, Fluff, God!Allura, God!Hunk, God!Pidge, Legends, M/M, Made up mythology, Shance Fluff Week, god!keith, myth, mythology AU, unedited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-09 15:28:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11107437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SouthernBird/pseuds/SouthernBird
Summary: "In a child’s tale, handed down through the lineage of elders that greedily hungered for the divine art of storytelling, there was once a mighty black lion with the red wings of the sun."--For Shance Fluff Week 2017 | Day Two - Sea/Stars





	What Lies Beyond Morning

**Author's Note:**

> I have always wanted to do a Myth!AU for Shance (I am a major sucker for it), so here it is! 
> 
> (I hope the dialogue isn't difficult to read!)

In a child’s tale, handed down through the lineage of elders that greedily hungered for the divine art of storytelling, there was once a mighty black lion with the red wings of the sun. 

 

The lion was a fast and a fearsome beast, yet to all who he blessed with his presence, they found a curious comfort; for such a large dark brute of a creature, the lion’s kindness knew no bounds, always giving to the people as they needed, whether it be for the sake of a village’s welfare or to bless the union between two lovers. 

 

The black lion would roar to rouse the sun awake from its slumber and would purr to greet the moon as it rose. Within his mane and his furs were the stars of the nighttime skies, as though he was bathed in their light always, or a creation of their making. 

 

Little do the people know that the black lion himself wove into existence each star, laughing as he wrung the gases into his strong paws to produce such glistening lights, little mottled specks of illumination to guide travelers home, and revere heroes and royals as they were buried into the earth once more; as the people would mourn a passing of loves ones, the black lion, pouncing along the dust of stars and comets, would shake his mane to make the stars shine so brilliantly that those in grieving would find some solace in the dancing constellations of those long past. 

 

For the children on their wayward adventures of the dark hours, the lion would fly amongst the clouds of the night sky and create moonbeams for their delight, making the oceans of their home glow with his prowess. The children, much to his delight, would gather along the shores to his safe gaze, to watch enraptured of the cosmic fumes that whorled through the air with a powerful flap of red wings. 

 

Through his many centuries, the black lion is appeased with his position over the people, with his authority of the skies and the stars. The universe becomes a small world for him, brings him home to the mortals with each cycle of sun and moon. 

 

But there are days, when the storm clouds roll in with the ominous prospects of rains for the crops that the lion begins to feel a bit lonely. 

 

Oh, he is never alone, he will always tell himself, always hearing the giggles of young ones during their play in the wheat fields, little hands brushing across the growing stalks. He is never alone, he always thinks, as the elders of the villages raise their voices in worship of the great beast of the skies, of his creations for the beings of a lower plane. He is never alone, he hopes in the muted moments of his immortality, when he watches the guardians of the forests and the earths shift with ever-changing landscapes, change colors of leaves with the close of each harvest season and allow the carving of stone and marble. Why, even the guardian of the fires shine brighter in the nighttime, when the moon is swollen full with her fertility, allowing longer passages of stories though all should be resting for the next rise of the sun. 

 

But, as he himself rests along a patch of clouds that glow with the silver beams of his lunar companion, the lion realizes with the heaviest of hearts that, yes, he is alone. 

 

He asks the stars, little glistening facets of himself, how can this be? A glorious beast as himself, shining with the natural lanterns that he has adorned the black veil of midnight with, has so many friends. His mortals and the other deities, they are known to him as much as he to them. His cycles grow the crops and nurture the forest, warm and cool the earths, and makes fire so vibrant and essential. 

 

 The stars, though, cannot speak back, cannot utter a word of comfort to their creator. So, instead, the lion of the skies rests along his perch again and waits for another day. 

 

But, the days grow longer and grow sadder, a routine that he has always found joy in a little less more than so whenever the sun curls into her bed to sleep, to renew her brilliance for another day. The sun, he can say, is his own, as is the moon, both the kindest of celestial beings to ascend and to descend at the wit of his command. The mortals are his, too, enthralling themselves in his orbiting authority. 

 

But, as with all things, they all come and go, just as the seasons and the births and the deaths of falling men, for what is the hope of jubilee to be found in the companionship of a lover if one cannot be found?

 

-

 

One day, though, a child basking in the heat of a summer sun, finds the most beautiful of shells, iridescent in shades of blues so perfect that the little one longs to offer the gift to the lion that plays with him at night, rouses the legends of his name while he traverses along the heavens. With the shell clutched to his chest, the boy waits until sunset to go back to the beaches of his village and call out for the lion. 

 

 _‘Shiro_ ,’ the boy bids with the sweetest of voices, so kind and so happy with his gift to the sky god that he calls over and over, ‘ _Shiro, Shiro!’_

 

With a rumbling bout of laughter, Shiro approaches on the foams of the sea tides, crimson feathers draping along his sleek back. So many children sing his name in their nursery rhymes, songs to laud of their deity’s magnificence, and this one is as elated as his others with his trembling hands holding the seashell. 

 

 _And what bids you here, child?_ Shiro inquires with crouch of his forepaws, leaning in so that the child might see the grey eyes of a godly beast, so that the child might hear his honey-warm lull. After all, he is not above the child in the manner of a god to a mortal; he may can bid the winds to offer fragments of stars gone to make them glow anew, can bid the planets to align for the idyllic poetries of the mortals’ writers, but when he grows old and tired, he will fade into the lunar fields and know restfulness. 

 

The child, with eyes so blue they are alive with the sea itself, depths of understanding for a child so young that it is a rarity that the lion has not seen in times recent. He, too, was once a child, blessed with storm eyes and proud spirit. He, too, offered a gift to the gods in another lifetime, to a fair wind goddess that had healed the scorching plains with her cooling breeze and promise of rains. With her eyes bold and her smile cordial, the wind goddess, Allura, bestowed upon him the authorities of the sky itself, to bring lights where none may be so that the people could travel and play after the toil of the sun was done. 

 

Her blessing was a means of a chrysalis, preparing a young boy into the ripe age of manhood where he, on a night with a new moon, suddenly ran to the edges of the world and morphed into a black lion to do as Allura had bidded years prior to a child that was just thankful to no longer watch his family starve. 

 

This boy, with a grin so bright it might darken the sun, may also come to grow into a beast of nature, to sail the winds or to swim the depths where others cannot. However, he might just be a regular sort of human that grows into a fine man, find a lover to begin life of kinship before withering into the dust from whence he once came.

 

But, the matter of this boy still lingers when the seashell is offered to the lion along with a binding promise.

 

‘ _I will be yours one day!’_ the boy exclaims, eyes so wide at the prospect of his words that he cannot contain their exuberance as they flood his lungs, ‘ _I will be yours! I will fly with you, be with you!’_

 

At such proclamation, the black creature can only chuckle at the determination in that little voice before he leans closer to nuzzle the little one’s hair, _to be with a lion is a feat that no other man knows; what brings you to tell me this?_

 

A tragedy, really, when the boy’s smile falls, breaks in two as though he was not expecting to be asked such as this. Small fingers fidget with the shell, eyes glancing down to find consolation in the nacreous smoothness before swallowing his worries and imparts words onto the deity of the skies. 

 

_‘Because you make me happy; you make the sun rise for me to play with my family and my friends, and then you make the moon shine so pretty on the seas! Th— that’s what I want to be! I want to be the ocean, so that I can be with you, like you’re always with me, with the sun and the stars!’_

 

He thinks upon it with a bend of his legs to drop his heavy form onto the surface of the ocean as his tail curls with curiosity. A child has stepped before him the most humble of endowments, a proposal that appears innocent amongst the lofty breezes of the shoreline. 

 

He pauses, then breathes in deep, lets the crimson feathers shiver on their barbs as he exhales shallowly, _child, the sea has not churned for many centuries, has long lost its creator to slumber. You would assume her throne as yours?_

 

Confusion lines the feature of the boy, and for a brief time, it may have been too arduous of a task to ask a child of his intentions that are far beyond his comprehension. To the black lion’s puzzlement, the downward turn of a heart giving up hope does not thrive, but instead glows against the shade of bleaker realities. It is difficult to say where the child plucked his enthusiasm to be with such divinity, but it there, the seeds sown in the pastures of affection of a youthful soul. 

 

 _‘I will be your sea, and you will be my sky— just wait!’_ is a proclamation that imbibes the salt spray of the air, that conjures the ideas of horizons where sky and water touch along the curvature of the boy’s homelands. Painted with the boy’s sweet laugh of departure from the lion is a scene of stars drifting along the ripples of waters, of glimmering stones interlaced sea’s nightly effervesce before a golden sunrise stains the waves with mellow oranges and dusky pinks. 

 

For years on, the laughter will prompt the image of intertwined fingers of lovers on sunlight walks, will move within the lion a hope for a companion that would embrace the sky with all that he is. As the seasons bloom and fade, there is an endless longing from the lion, transfixed by nothing more than a small mortal believing that he may win the attentions of a magnanimous creature of flight. 

 

Those years, fruitless to find the child ever again, leaves the black lion with a burdening sense of apastron. What was once a silly thing, to cleverly find the brave youth to see his reaction to being followed by the roars of a creature of supernovae just once and then float off, becomes an excursion that is underlined by yearning that rifts deep. For other gods, to want to bask in the presence of a mortal may seen as though the time has come for sleep, but he infers within his strongly beating core that he is still resolved to do more with himself, though with the hopes of a sea lover by his side. 

 

He has all but given up hope until one night, there is a lone figure that steps to his shore, tall and lithe, a sun kissed beauty with haunting blue eyes that curiosity is piqued and draws the lion to the shores. 

 

The man— his once boy admirer— has grown, immeasurably so, into a radiant symbol of youth in its prime before the inevitable decline of age takes him, makes him frail like the last leaves of autumn that drift down before the crunch of heels travel along their decayed paths. It is a burden, to die, one that he as a deity will not know for many more eons, but to see a young man endowed with a pulchritude that catches eyes of sky gods is enough to fulfill a quake that lines his once heart. 

 

He steps along the surface of a tired sea, hesitate, but the boy has a fulgent grin that blinds even the thunder coils and the lightning strikes, erupts within the lion a sense of confidence that the day is won. 

 

It’s a rumble of a question that leads the man to go to a small sailboat, pull out strange items that the lion has never seen. After a bit of work, there is a fire in his hands from a little flame that centers his camp, a long stick that he uses to light the objects that have been pulled from a rickety yet loyal boat. 

 

 _I traveled,_ the man begins, blue eyes glowing warmly with the orange flickers before he begins to set each small lantern to slip onto the buoyancy of salt water pools, _everywhere to find you these._

 

To the lion’s amazement, the lanterns drift along the gentle sways of waves, like fractured specks of sunlight gliding along to the horizon unknown. There are soon tens, hundreds of these lanterns, all lit with a candle gleams that cascades colors along the ocean, shimmering reds, blues, yellows, and greens while passing by the lion to find lands and others far out where his eye may no longer see.

 

But, he knows that he will always find these lanterns, peculiar as they are, steadily placed out to float in fractal rays from the man’s little portion of the universe, from his spot on a shoreline that curves down as far as the line of horizons go. 

 

 _‘See, Shiro?’_ is a question asked breathless and excited, asked with a span of arms that would be so perfect to step in, to be wrapped in; the lion has not wanted physical affection from another being for so long, perfectly content with his creation and his purpose, yet this one human has shaken his core, cracked the foundation to make him yearn. 

 

‘ _I’ve made the sea a sky, made the stars and the constellations to mirror what you’ve given me— given us,’_ once more it’s a heated exhale before inhaling deep with the labor of love he has come to gift a god of the cosmos with, a sense of pride that shivers in the man’s joints while fluttering his heart at the sight of a speechless black beast. 

 

Speechless he is, entirely to the point that his tongue is heavy, iron laden in his mouth because, yes, he sees the stars, how they waft along with slight bobs of currents curling with the breath of a sleeping goddess that will never waken again, how the crystals glisten as though they were hanging by luminous threads placed into the ether by his own hand. 

 

He is in love, brought down to the submission of it with the realization that this boy has indeed grown into a wayfarer, has taken his little boat that he built himself with the guidance and the resources of his friends and family to go scour the earths for the most prestigious of gifts, to find with his own hands the ways to make stars along a black canvas of sea. 

 

The breeze shifts, draws the lanterns further across the curve of their earth to reflect the lion’s own creations, to mirror the legends he has patterned across the fabrics of his skies. 

 

For this man, who has now fallen quiet with the silence that has greeted him this whole time, his face reveals a worry that creases his brows and drags those soft corners of his mouth down. No, that will not do, the lion tells himself, draws his red feathers around his body while stepped along the timeless sea to expose himself in ways that no other man or other woman would ever know, or remember to know. 

 

To this man who has made stars just for him, he will display himself as he was before assuming the beast’s form, a human body that will only allow for what he longs for most. 

 

_What a beautiful gift you have given me, precious one._

 

It’s a purr, but it will convey with his more feline senses his enjoyment from his gift, and it’s just perfect to see eyes bluer than the waters he walks upon widen with the astonishment of seeing a lion morph into a handsome man with white in his hair and a scar along his nose. 

 

Shiro has an awareness that trickles into his core, that wraps a heat around his heart that looms sweetly like a lover’s embrace, that there is a love that though briefly born from a young child’s delusions that he could grasp a lion by the mane and make him desire, it is still there, thrumming with the crackles of a fire. 

 

 _‘I’d… I should have found more, but—’_ with a snort, there’s a finger upon the boy’s lips and a croon of a shush. Shiro will not abide the talk, will not allow this one to speak as though he has failed when failure is but a saddened mind believing that success was not achieved. It has, so very much so, touched deep with abysses that have not known lightness for such a long, long time. 

 

_You have made the ocean shine with stars, a feat no one has ever done for me. I searched for you, and yet you were with me all the while, searching for treasures to bring to me. You must have sailed through frightening storms, navigated the tumultuous billows of a restless goddess that slumbers for eternity, yet here you are to be so selfless, to bring to me such a sight…_

 

He cannot help himself, permits himself to wrap his arms around this human’s waist, and that smile, oh, that is so gorgeous, the slow turns of mental capacities leading a buzzing revelation that he done it, that he has made the creator of stars fall in love with him, just as he fell in love with the incandescence of night skies, just as he fell in love with the dewy brilliance of the first light of sunrise. 

 

 _‘All because you made me happy; you made the sun rise for me so that I would find the east, and you made the stars to guide me home,’_ the man speaks, reaching to cup a lion man’s jaw to slip them closer together, to let their foreheads press together with their smiles bloom with the sun within their chests, _‘and as a child, you showed me what lies beyond the morning, and it’s you.’_

 

If Shiro did not kiss the man— Lance, he will learn later when they sit at the shores to discuss the myths that live in the cloudy dusts of the cosmos, a name gifted from his mother— he would surely wither away into his own endless sleep, and truly, there is no far better feeling than effulgent kisses to taper away time itself while lanterns drift out to find twilights galore. Instead of just his own authority, there is now another that shakes awake the vessel of the sun to draw her  light along a horizon, to bring forth her warmth over a now thriving sea. 

 

And the legends will die, one day, or they will change; they will no longer carry the tones of elders as they stand at the fire of their villages, but this story shall always remain the same, shall always hold the truth of how the sky and the sea will reflect a love that can only be found between them, a love that can only be found beyond mornings and beyond nights.


End file.
